Decentralized, blockchain-based messaging and social media apps saw a surge of interest over the last year amid civil unrest and communication blackouts in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
Search interest in decentralized social media has grown 145% over the last five years, according to Exploding Topics, while decentralized peer-to-peer messaging service Bitchat saw a spike in downloads during protests in Madagascar, Uganda, Nepal, Indonesia and Iran in recent months.
“I think people are starting to trust open protocols more than they trust closed companies,” Shane Mac, the CEO of XMTP Labs, told Cointelegraph in a recent interview.
XMTP Labs is a startup focused on building decentralized communication technology. Mac said that unrest around the world is pushing people to explore decentralized messaging options and think more about privacy.
WhatsApp, the messaging app owned by social media giant Meta, said in February that Russia had moved forward with its block on the app, making it inaccessible without a VPN or similar workaround.
“The last 15 years have been centralized, and the next 15 are going to decentralize. When you see an entire country shut down single apps, it tells you that there has to be a new foundation that we need to go build on,” added Mac.
“Open source is having a moment. Open protocols, open financial systems, open communication protocols, open identity standards. It’s going to be a really cool next era of the internet as decentralization and open standards come back.”
No single point of failure
Mac said decentralized networks can provide a safe harbor during turmoil as they’re typically harder to shut down without a single point of failure.
Decentralized platforms are generally hosted across networks spanning multiple countries, with servers managed by their participants.
In comparison, centralized options run on a single collection of servers controlled by one entity or company, which can be blocked and taken offline more easily.
He added that the technology is only getting better as developers and users push the boundaries.
“Someone took the open source Bitchat client and put the XMTP network inside of it, because they were getting their app shut down in their country. The connection of mesh networks and decentralized networks meant the app is no longer the single point of failure,” Mac said.
Decentralized messengers won’t replace the old guard
Market researcher 360 Research Reports predicted in a March 2 report that the blockchain messaging market will grow significantly over the next few years, with main drivers such as global demand for enhanced privacy and security in communication fueling the growth.
However, despite rising user interest, Mac said centralized platforms will likely remain popular and operate alongside decentralized alternatives. Developers will need to step up and keep innovating to sustain that momentum.
Exploding Topics found that social media users now spread their time across an average of 6.75 social media platforms per month.
Related: Telegram’s Durov: We’re ‘running out of time to save the free internet’
“I don’t think it will end up killing things; you built a new platform. SMS and email didn’t die to build encrypted messaging; I don’t know if they go away,” Mac said, referring to centralized messengers.
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